The number of people under the age of 18 who are serving sentences in juvenile detention centres has risen sharply over the last five years. According to prison service figures, there were 123 young people in Sweden's youth units last year. That's an increase of 151% compared to 1999, reported Dagens Nyheter. "Violent crime committed by young people is rising and that is worrying," Minister for Public Health and Social Services, Morgan Johansson, told the paper. Johansson also tried to paint the picture in a more positive light by claiming that another reason for the increase was that more serious crimes involving young people were being solved by police.

A riot by over forty prisoners at a jail in central Sweden ended on Friday night, but not before a prison building had been wrecked by the rebellious inmates. The rebellion, in the 'motivation department' of the Järvsta jail in Gävle, started on Friday evening at half past seven. The motivation department is home to those prisoners classed as particularly difficult to reform. Early reports indicated that prison warders had been taken captive, but this was later denied by police. The prisoners' claimed they were rioting in response to overcrowding at the jail, reported Dagens Nyheter. Inmates armed themselves with iron bars and tried to escape by breaking out of doors and windows, and destroyed all the surveillance cameras in the building.

Gangs of 14 - 15-year-olds raping and robbing is now common in many Stockholm suburbs. Mafia networks demanding protecting money from private businesses and giving bomb threats to municipal workers are increasingly common. Organized crime is no longer just a problem in the major cities. It has now spread throughout most of Sweden.

Reporters Without Borders voiced shock today that the Norrköpings Tidningar (a daily based in Norrköping, southwest of Stockholm) received an anonymous letter on 23 August warning that four bombs would be set off in the town, one of them next to the newspaper, if it did not stop carrying reports about organised crime and did not apologise for the reports already published. This is the second time the newspaper has been the target of threats of this nature in a month.

The Justice Department received a proposal to increase protection for threatened witnesses in January 2004, and a committee proposed that the new policy could be implemented a year later. However, DN writes that the only thing the Justice Department has done is send the proposal out for feedback from communities. "Especially in cases dealing with organized crime, we're seeing that threats against witnesses are increasing," she adds. A flurry of escapes last summer (not to mention this summer) overshadowed the issue. But convictions for trying to influence witnesses are increasing, and the issue is again making headlines. The trial of three men for the killing in May of 29-year old Marcus Gabrielsen has helped to move witness protection up the agenda. A number of witnesses to the attack on Gabrielsen in central Stockholm changed their accounts before the case came to court, and none of the men were convicted of the killing, although the prosecutor has said that there is no evidence that the witnesses were threatened. In 2003, 115 people were sentenced to jail for obstructing justice. In 2004 it was 174.

Firearms are used in murders, attempted murders or robberies three times a day in Sweden, according to statistics from the National Police Board. In 2004, police registered 1,187 such crimes involving guns, a similar figure to the previous two years, reported Göteborgs-Posten. But the difference is that the kind of weapon has changed. "Before, there were a lot of shotguns - now it's all automatic weapons," said Per-Olof Johansson, a detective in the Gothenburg police reconnaissance division. "In the last five years we've also confiscated a lot of hand grenades."

Gangs of road pirates pose an increased threat on Swedish highways, Swedish radio news channel SR reported. The highway robbers strike at night, attacking travelers who have parked their mobile homes by the road to sleep. Swedish police said 30 robberies had already been reported this summer, most of them in the southern and western parts of the country. In seven robberies, the pirates sprayed anesthetic gas into the mobile homes to ensure that its residents remained asleep while they stripped the cabin of valuables. Tourists are warned about the robbers when they cross the Øresund Bridge, aboard ferries, and in service areas. The Swedish police said they had contacted European intelligence agency Europol for further information about the road pirates. ‘We suspect they are criminal gangs from the former Yugoslavia,’ said Per-Arne Nilsson from the police in Mölndal, which is in charge of coordinating the Swedish effort against the robberies.

Swedish police test online crime reportingUppsala residents are the first in Sweden to test a new method of reporting crimes to the police - via the internet. The trial comes as a result of the new national incident report number, 114 14, receiving 30% more calls than expected since it was introduced six months ago.

6 Comments:

No doubt things are getting worse in my country but I suppose what most ppl complain about is that you give a narrow view of what's really happening. Sureley you have no intentions of showing what's "good about sweden", after all that's not what your blog is about but many ppl believe that's possible when you run a blog.

I know that things are getting tougher and tougher in my country and I think it's a shame (and the fact that I have to read your blog to get the news is even worse) and I know there's plenty of swedes who are aware of this fact and acknowledge this tragic reality whereas some ppl don't. And I suppose you've been getting plenty of emails from them.

I don't agree with you, Fjordman on a number of issues and sometimes I feel that you're walking on thin ice. For some reason I feel that you are pushing the wrong buttons and looking for the wrong answers.

Frederik: You are always welcome to criticize my views, as are any of my readers. But I would appreciate it if you could be a little more specific: What buttons, and what answers? You have to ask whether the steep and unprecedented rise in crime in Sweden (and in Scandinavia/Europe) is in some way connected to the massive immigration we have had during that same period. When statistics reveal a huge amount of people from non-native background involved in this, I find this relevant. When statistics from Norway and Denmark show that immigrants (usually Muslims) are grossly overrepresented in rape cases, you also have to ask whether it is a coincidence that rape charges have tripled in Sweden. I know many people won't like these questions, but that doesn't mean that they are wrong.

Most certainly not, It's just that as soon as I see people mentioning immigrants together with rapestatistics I get a bad feeling. The only ones mentioning these numbers tend to belong in the nationalistic/xenophobic corner which raises a few questions. The first is - exactly what do these numbers mean? Do they mean that immigrants, mostly muslim immigrants have another attitude towards these crimes, that it is a part of their culture or does it mean that our societies are constructed in a way which make these numbers rise? I've always felt that the welfarestate is the biggest problem. It creates more problems than it solves which I know you agree with.

Still, I have a very suspicious feeling towards this sceptic attitude towards a society where ppl from different parts of the world collide. Sure, multiculturalism has many flaws and I believe we will come to terms with those flaws, still you argue against this society, a society I see as inevitable. I mean that in a globalized world you can't keep ethnical groups togheter without influence from the outside world. We live in "globalization 3.0" as Friedman expressed it where individuals are a part of the global world. Therefore the multicultural society is not something we should hinder or struggle against. It is the fear of this society which creates these crimestatistics. I'm most certainly not satisfied with this stupid political correctness where all cultures are equally worth. It's not true but on the other hand, things sure won't go better by struggling. Immigrants are an advantage, especially in Scandinavia where the birthrates are slowly declining.

If immigrants want to live hear they have to work and they have to learn how to deal with our societies fundamental functions. When we all can agree on that I'm confident that this problem will decline rather rapidly. The welfarestate is the developed worlds biggest problem and in many cases the most fundamental flaw which hinders people from developing. I can't really say that I know of many countries which have been successful with integrating immigrants, some might use the U.S. and I can agree with that. But the U.S. is widely different, most importantly since it's welfare systems is far away from as big as ours. The question isn't if we want a multiculural society, we don't have a choice but how we deal with a society of these proportions. Scandinavia has failed and we know why, why then this fear?